Quotes About Family

The primary objective of Federal efforts in family life and sex education has been to reduce unwanted pregnancy rates among teenagers, while the primary goal of most sex educators appears to be encouragement of healthy attitudes about sex and sexuality.

When we reached home your cheeks were like roses, and your eyes were shining like stars, and you tried to tell Mummy so much in one breath that I thought you would burst.

Oh,' said the little girl, 'my head's on your heart; I can hear it going. What a big heart you've got, father dear.

Mi tragedia es mi madre. Viviendo con ella, vivo en el ataúd de mis aspiraciones nonatas

The Samuel Josephs were not a family. They were a swarm. The moment you entered the house they cropped up and jumped out at you from under the tables, through the stair rails, behind the doors, behind the coats in the passage. Impossible to count them: impossible to distinguish between them.

As you begin to see yourself, your family, and the old, outmoded behavior patterns that run your life with more clarity, you're taking steps to live more deeply from your authentic self.

Children have no frame of reference with which to understand that those rules are simply choices that his parents have made, and that other families and communities will have different styles of relating and behaving. His focus becomes narrow, he becomes less flexible, and may have trouble as an adult operating outside of the rules set for him by his parents.

In dysfunctional families, people overfocus on problems—even very small ones—without allowing any focus on the innumerable ways a child does things well. This is one of the primary causes of low self-esteem. A child can do ten, fifty, a hundred things right in a day, but an overly critical parent will pick out the one thing that doesn't go well, and harp on it over and over.

the fact that because I grew up in a dysfunctional family where there was a lot of tension and conflict, I have a tendency to fall into feeling like there's conflict all around me even when there isn't. Because struggle was a part of my life from day one, sometimes I unthinkingly create drama in my mind because it feels like "home." I forget that things can be easy, that life can go smoothly, and that I can get what I want.

My parents were deeply committed to service in the community – their willingness manifested in their volunteering and giving to others. But at home, the "struggle against" was pervasive because they never learned in their own dysfunctional families how to nourish themselves and other family members.

The question to ask yourself is, Do you always or never do that? Or is it only once in a while? One of the favorite tricks of family bullies is to make criticisms global (blowing them out of proportion) so they seem much more important. Another favorite manipulation is to place a label on you, as in "Too bad you're not a better mother." How would someone know, since they don't see how you are with your kids day in and day out—only on special occasions?

Usually this is a result of having had to be hypervigilant as a child—especially if your family situation was chaotic or frightening—and consequently developing a habit of trying to see problems before they even show up.

Growing up in a very dysfunctional family, I learned early in my life not to have high expectations. As a consequence, my ideas didn't often pan out. I guess I figured that if I didn't expect much, I wouldn't be disappointed. But instead, I ended up being disappointed most of the time.

All of this makes me realize that my parents never knew me. They never really knew who I was. They only knew the picture of who I was that they'd helped me create in response to their needs. How sad it is to think that these people who knew me for 50 years, who had given me life, never really knew who I am.

Reality checks" are an extremely important tool for people who struggle with dysfunctional family dynamics.

The discovery that some of the behaviors in your family that you thought and felt were wrong or abnormal actually were abnormal is tremendously freeing and validating, and helps you learn to trust yourself. Don't be afraid to ask if something seems normal to someone else. Even though dysfunctional family dynamics are usually well-hidden behind the closed doors of many families, almost everyone experiences them.

What all of this means for people who've grown up in dysfunctional families or traumatic or abusive situations is that the world they live in—the reality they inhabit—is very different from the world of people who have been cared for, supported, and loved. This is why people who have grown up in supportive, close-knit families often can't understand why those of us who were abused may have such trouble with relationships or with life itself.

Everyone in the family knows the "invisible" rules, and the behavior of all family members is based on them. But taking those unspoken rules into adulthood can create misunderstandings and misinterpretations when communicating with anyone who is not part of the family.

You might also try making a list of your parents' values and beliefs, and follow the above procedure, making a list of your own values and beliefs to compare. If your parents valued a spotless house, do you truly value the same thing, or do you have a different value? Maybe you'd rather meet your friends and have fun, and clean once a month instead of once a week. That's perfectly fine—everyone has different values.

In functional families, children are encouraged by parents, and as they become adults, they internalize those supportive voices so that the positive messages are with them for their entire lives. In the same way, those of us who grew up in dysfunctional families internalized the negative, critical voices, which haunt us until we decide we're not going to listen to them any more.

There are always options in life—and you may not have been aware of that up until now, because there often are not a lot of options in a dysfunctional family. Be open to other options and new possibilities as much as you can, and know that you can trust yourself to handle whatever comes up.

Most people in the world will not treat you the same way your dysfunctional family did. It takes a while to begin to see that the world is different than the family atmosphere. The more time you can spend thinking about what you want, noticing what situations in the present remind you of the past and releasing the related emotions, and encouraging yourself in what you most want to do, the more quickly you can heal from the past.

pas bon, celui-là, maman. Du saumon d'élevage gueule contre cul à bouffer les crottes des autres ».

That was the rule that you never mixed up troubles at home with life at school. When parents were poor or ignorant or mean, or even just didn't believe in having a TV set, it was up to their kids to protect them.